I Shall Rewrite the Stars

Chapter 1

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How did it come to this?

I, the proud daughter of an ancient kingdom, third born to Pharoh’s Cleo and Antonius ny Kemet, now languish in isolated exile. I, who was destined for an extraordinary life, meant to serve my parents; advise my brothers; and look after my younger sister, now reduced to a sickly heap of rags grayish-pale skin. I, Selene ny Kemet, who’d always dreamed of an era of peace, now turn my eyes from the war-torn remnants of a world seized by a blood-thirsty conqueror. 

Why did the stars forsake me? Why did they write a fate that has left me to die on some abandoned island in the Medi Sea? Why did they allow me to hope and dream for an entire childhood, just to ruin it all on the very night I turned eighteen?

A ragged, wheezing cough tears through my chest, out my sore throat, and past my trembling lips. I lost the strength to walk so long ago, I can’t remember when I last stood on my own feet. I’d managed to crawl across the warm, brown sands to the far side of a crumbling, mud-brick hut, where I’d left a terracotta jug of well-water, just yesterday…or was it the day before?

My throat is so dry, it might have been several days ago, now.

 With what little strength I have left, I peer toward the jug. My vision blurs and swims, and in the haze of the sweltering room, the jug shimmers like the golden amphorae used during my Blessing celebration some six years ago. Mother and Father had only enough time to offer a single toast for Helios and—

“Helios,” I whisper, as my eyes slip shut.

In my mind I can still see him. My younger brother, my precious twin. Radiant and strong, showing off the short, teal hair and matching eyes that the spirit of the sea had blessed him with just the night before. I see his tanned skin shimmer in the torch lights ringing the Great Hall, before it pales within the shadows of the Vaticannan dungeons in Roma. I see Helios’ bright gaze harden, his youthful face worn with hatred and exhaustion.

I see him step before our mistress, the emperor’s sister, Octavia, after I’d accidentally knocked a vase onto her head while sweeping…and I see his beautiful smile fill with all the love and encouragement he could manage, before the executioner’s axe took his head off with one swift blow.

It should have been me.

When Mother and Father took their own lives in a failed attempt to appease Roma, it should have been me. When my elder brother Cearion was betrayed and murdered in the Jambudvīpan desert, it should have been me. When my younger sister Ptolemy was poisoned and died shortly after our arrival at Octavia’s villa, it should have been me.

If anyone in my family should have died first, it should have been me because…because I am useless.

Foolish.

A failure in everything I have ever tried to do.

I was a good student, but nothing compared to Mother’s natural wit and charm. Forbidden to learn the ways of the sword as a girl, I was helpless when faced with the Romasian soldiers who’d flooded our shores during the invasion. I could make friends easily enough, but when my kingdom fell, my friends fell away too. For who would dare risk helping me once I’d became the sole survivor of my royal bloodline?

No one—well, almost no one.

My heart throbs, from pain or unwavering love I’m unsure. Just thinking about the one person who stood by me in my darkest hours is enough to drag my lips into the smallest of smiles.

“Juba.”

 I never cared that he was Emperor Gustavian’s exclusive slave, nor that he was the man tasked with bending my siblings and I to Roma’s will. I was struck by Juba’s beauty the moment I saw him, from the scarlet scarf at his throat to the midnight blue of his long hair and matching eyes.

I was fascinated by his ability to appease superiors, only to glare them down the moment their backs turned. I was enchanted by his grace, and grateful for his patience when I stumbled through every last assignment I was given.

Cautious and heavy-hearted from a lifetime spent fighting to survive, Juba still opened his callused hands toward me, and held my own with a gentleness that no one but I knew him capable of.

Now, behind my closed eyes I see Juba’s surprise on the glorious morning we were summoned to a meeting in the imperial palace. Gustavian, seated on a high throne and draped in a toga of white and purple, had looked so pleased with himself. Like the order he’d just given was the greatest insult he could conjure against us.

Little did he know that, for me at least, the command to marry Juba had set my heart overflowing with joy. Of course, I was nervous and embarrassed, presenting myself as a bride in a small, courtyard ceremony, dressed in rags and a veil made from fraying sackcloth. On his end, Juba wore the same black tunic and golden manacles around his wrists as always, yet somehow he’d never appeared more radiant.

I see his blush when we’d shared our marital kiss, and feel the phantom of his arm around my waist as we’d stood at the bow of a ship slowly delivering us into exile on this very island. I’m sure if I opened my eyes, I would see the ghost of Juba’s silhouette in the doorway, with scavenged grapes and dates in hand and a warm smile under his sunburned cheeks.

We were so happy in the freedom of our exile; so content to spend our days exploring the island, rebuilding this hut, and falling in love. If only we’d been more careful, more vigilant. If only word of our comfort hadn’t somehow gotten back to Gustavian, then maybe those happy days could have lasted forever.

I’d wanted them to last forever.

The memory of my last glimpse of Juba’s face, his tear-lined eyes holding mine as the guards drug me from Gustavian’s throne room, send a shudder through my body. The divorce order rings through my mind, and the cool sensation of a guard’s sword at my throat still numbs my skin. If only I’d been able to fight back or come up with some kind of witty distraction, then maybe…maybe Juba wouldn’t have said yes. Maybe he wouldn’t have given up our marriage in exchange for saving my life.

Or so he’d thought.

I knew when I was drug onto a ship littered with coughing, pale and near-skeletal oarsmen, that Gustavian had silently ordered my demise. I knew before the sun set, and Roma’s shoreline faded behind us, that mine was a death sentence to be served on the island Juba and I had made into a home.

I knew the moment I set foot into this lonely hut, that it would become my tomb, and that I, a proud Sat-Nesut of Kemet, would die with only the blazing sun to witness my final breaths.

How pathetic.

How wrong—all of it—everything about it!

Everything about these last six years has been wrong, wrong, wrong!

Why did my kingdom have to fall—why did my family have to die? Why must I suffer until my heart finally stops? Is it because I was the first in my bloodline to not receive a blessing? Is it because the great spirits rejected me?

If I could, I would pull at my brown hair and cover my matching eyes, the cursed signs of the spirits’ rejection. The proof that no spirits appeared from the incense smoke, and no voices spoke to me on that long ago night when the stars refused my right to share power with the great forces of the world.

And hurt as I was, I’d accepted their decision. I had! I…I’d tried to.

But should I have?

I lived as best as I could as a child. I was obedient to my parents, loving toward my siblings, respectful toward my tutors and elders, and charitable toward our common-folk. I never stole, never lied—well, not about anything that mattered.

I was the best person I could be, so why wasn’t that good enough? Why did fate decide that I wasn’t good enough?

‘Fate can be cruel, as you’ve come to learn. It’s not something any one human can understand. The stars simply do as they please, uncaring of who they hurt in the end.’

I lift my head, then pause, surprised to find that heaviness has left my body. The dusty hut has become a space of gentle, white light and cool air. A glance down reveals not the rags and manacles I’ve grown used to, nor the manacle ring that Juba had broken off and fashioned into my wedding band, but the white linen gown and emerald sash from my Blessing ceremony.

The dirt, scars, and bruises have disappeared from my body, replaced with the flawless, soft brown skin I once had, and even my golden cuffs and collar have returned to where they’d one lain.

A brief joy fills my heart, only to pale beneath a wave of grief. “Have I finally died, then?” I whisper to what must be the afterworld. “I didn’t even notice...”

‘That is because Death came as a friend, before I turned her away.’

Following the soft voice of a woman, I find her standing some feet away. With pin-straight silver hair pooled against the floor, the woman wrings her pale hands against a wide, white skirt. Bracelets and armlets of silver shimmer about her arms, matching the sparkle of the silver disk that rests upright against the center of her head.

Silver eyes flashing from white to dull gray, the woman offers a hesitant smile.

‘Hello, Selene.’

“Do I know you?” I ask, confused by the pain that crosses her face.

‘You did, and you will again,’ she replies. ‘For your role in the world is not yet fulfilled. Not unless you wish it to be.’

“I’ve died, haven’t I? There’s nothing I can do in the world now, and even if I could…”

What would be the point? I’ve nothing left to fight for. It’s all gone. Gone.

‘But what if you could have it all again?’

My eyes whip up, locking with the woman’s. “How?”

‘The stars betrayed you because of me, because I favor you, and because I have the power to change the fate they’ve chosen for the world. If you accept my blessing, you will gain the ability to change fate, too.’

“Your blessing…are you a spirit?”

How could I have not realized? The ethereal glow, the low thrum of power seeping from the woman’s very being. The scent of midnight dew and the chill of a moonless night—how could I ever have confused her for anything less than an all-powerful being?

“You’re the spirit of the moon, aren’t you? Isis, one half of the Sacred Balance, and queen of the great spirits.”

Her smile widens just a bit. ‘And you are Selene ny Kemet, whom I have chosen to receive my first blessing in 1,000 years.’

Hope, confusion, and rage swell in my chest. “Isn’t it too late for that? If you were going to bless me, why wait until my heart stopped? Why wait until I’d already lost every reason left to live?”

‘There are some questions I cannot answer right now, and our window of opportunity is rapidly closing. You must make a decision, Selene. Will you take hold of the quill of fate and fight for a better future, or will you go quietly into the afterlife?’

Such a decision feels too great, too good to be true and too important for someone like me to make. I stumbled through life before, but what if…what if I can truly change things for the better? What if I can use the skills Juba taught me and my knowledge of the future to change it all?

“If I accept your offer, is my success guaranteed?” I ask. “Or is there a chance I’ll lose everything all over again?”

‘The stars will not submit easily,’ Isis says. ‘You will have to fight all the great forces of existence, but should you come out on top, the world you find at the end of your journey will be the one you most desired. That much I can promise you.’

“The one I most want it to be...” The faces of all those I’ve loved cross my mind, and I smile. “Alright then. I’ll do it! Hand me the quill of fate and I swear to you here and now, that somehow, someway, I shall rewrite the stars!”

Isis’s smile widens, and the light of the world grows blinding as she steps first toward and then through me.

‘Let time reverse, and all that has passed shall become all that has yet to be. I will watch over you, Selene, as this second attempt at life shall be your last. You must make it count.’

“I will,” I say, overcome with the sensation of drifting down, down, down. “I promise, I will.”

The scents of frankincense, myrrh, and jasmine rise to surround me, followed by the murmur of voices I’ve missed for so very long.

“Teal hair and eyes—how boring,” Cearion teases from somewhere ahead of me. “I was hoping Settesh would bless you with the ability to wield untamed beasts, like me. You got the short end of the stick, Heli.”

“Whoever controls the seas controls access to the world,” Father chides. “In terms of power, his blessing exceeds yours.”

Cearion scoffs. “Ask anyone which they’d rather face: a lion or a wave. Hands down, they’ll fear the lion more.”

“Enough already,” Mother huffs. “The smoke is clearing. I think Selene might almost be—”

“Let’s hope she’s almost done,” Ptolemy groans, her voice drawing me a step forward. Then another. “It’s daybreak. I want to go to bed already!”

“Ptoley,” I whisper, my voice softer, younger. “Heli. Ceari.”

“You’re not lost in there, are you, Leanie?” Cearion laughs. “Just take a few more steps. We’re all right here waiting for you.”

I blink fast, tears spilling down my cheeks as the smoke thins, and my parents appear mere feet away.

Mother’s golden eyes widen, her brown hands pressing tight over her lips, whilst Father’s gray eyes look me over as though he cannot recognize me.

“Silver,” he mutters, raising a scar-flecked hand to brush back a steely-gray curl.

“Don’t tell me…” Helios gasps, drawing my eyes to where he stands just inches to my right. “Were you really blessed by the spirit of the moon?”

Joy, intense and overwhelming steals my voice as I look from face to face. My beloved family, all alive and breathing.

All safe.

“Selene?”

“She did,” I gasp, wiping at my eyes with the backs of my hands. “She did, and now I’m here and I…”

I’ll do better this time. I’ll change everything—everything! Let come what may, this time, I will not lose to the will of the stars. We will live, Roma will fail, and all shall be as it was always meant to be.

I swear it.

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